Tiempo Climate Newswatch

India claims that the rich countries of the world have not delivered on promises to transfer technology to combat global warming. "We had hoped for much larger foreign direct investment. We are disappointed by the scale of foreign technology under the Clean Development Mechanism," said Prodipto Ghosh at the Ministry of Forests and Environment. "Adaptation will require tens of billions of dollars a year," he says. The Indian government has set up an adaptation fund and one expert reckons that the nation is ahead of many developing countries in managing the climate problem. "Adaptation is the same as development as it is basically about improving people's ability to deal with adversity whether it be adverse weather conditions or poverty," comments Bilal Rahill, South Asia specialist with the World Bank. "India has a number of development programmes that have inherent, built-in adaptation aspects."

India's carbon emissions rose by a third between 1992 and 2002, according to the World Bank's Little Green Data Book. Yet, says environment minister A Raja, "India is very little in terms of emissions and we are not the biggest polluters when compared to the developed nations." "We are not doing any harm to the entire world," he continued. "We are, in spite of the developmental activities taking place in this country, very categorical that our emissions are below three per cent [of global emissions] which is within limits." Nevertheless, action is needed say environmentalists. "We understand that the country is on a development path and that India still needs to provide energy to much of its population," said K Srinivas of Greenpeace India. "But that doesn't mean we need to rely on primary sources of energy like coal to do that. There are so many other sources of renewable energy which we should be focusing more on."

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that global carbon emissions could rise by 55 per cent by 2030 unless "urgent" action is taken. Developing countries would account for three-quarters of the increase, passing the OECD nations in terms of total emissions by as early as 2012. "This increase [from developing countries] is faster than that of their share in energy demand, because their incremental energy use is more carbon-intensive than that of the OECD and transitional economies. In general, they use more coal and less gas," states the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook.

China may overtake the United States as the world's largest emitter before 2010, according to the IEA. The prediction is "not impossible," according to Chen Ying of the Research Centre for Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. But "to put a penalty on China would be unfair," says Fatih Birol, who is chief economist at the IEA. "After all, coal fuelled the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom." IEA executive director Claude Mandil called on governments to adopt policies that would move the world onto a sustainable energy path. "The good news," he said, "is that these policies are very cost-effective. There are additional upfront costs involved, but they are quickly outweighed by savings in fuel expenditures. And the extra investment by consumers is less than the reduction in investment in energy-supply infrastructure. Demand-side investments in more efficient electrical goods are particularly economic; on average, an additional US$1 invested in more efficient electrical equipment and appliances avoids more than US$2 in investment in power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure."

The Brazilian state of Pará has designated an area the size of England as a conservation area. "If any tropical rainforest on Earth remains intact a century from now, it will be this portion of northern Amazonia," says Russell Mittermeier of Conservation International. "The region has more undisturbed rainforest than anywhere else, and the new protected areas being created by Pará State represent a historic step toward ensuring that they continue to conserve the region's rich biodiversity, due in large part to the governor's visionary achievement."

The protected region will be 16.4 million hectares in extent. With neighbouring protected areas in Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, it forms a green corridor known as the Guyana Shield, which contains some of the world's richest habitats. About one third of the area will be totally protected against any agricultural, industrial or domestic development. "Traditional communities will be living in these areas... They will be allowed to use the forest in a sustainable way but this will not involve the clear-cutting of the forest," said state governor Simão Jatene. Road-building, logging, agriculture, mining and any other destructive, non-sustainable activity would be banned or strictly controlled. "If anyone tries to do this illegally, it will be detected by satellites," he warned.